POULTRY AND GAME BIRDS. 157 



master of the house and taking possession of his wives, 

 who are nothing loth. This form of social life has also 

 been tried among men, but its influence on character 

 has not proved elevating. It does not tend to produce 

 good fathers nor worthy sons, as David found out 

 and Solomon too. And among gallinaceous birds the 

 father does not take much interest in his offspring. 

 The mother retires into solitude and brings them 

 up herself. Fortunately they need far less care than 

 the young of other birds generally. Born on the 

 ground, they get on their own legs as soon as they 

 leave the egg, and they do not open their little mouths 

 to be fed, but pick up food for- themselves, the mother 

 showing them the way. So they are very soon able 

 to shift for themselves, though they follow the mother 

 for months. Under these conditions a mother can 

 manage a much larger family than if she had to feed 

 each one with a spoon, and the mothers of this order 

 are usually like the old woman who lived in a shoe, as 

 I remember her represented in my early picture books. 

 But there is usually only one brood in the year. 



Gallinaceous birds are not musical ; in fact, there 

 is a defect in their vocal organs, so that they cannot 

 modulate their voices. They utter clucks or clicks, 

 or a long shrill note, dislocated in the middle, 

 which is called a crow. Jerdon quotes the obser- 

 vation that there is an analogy in many points be- 

 tween this order and the Ruminants among beasts, 

 namely, the cattle and sheep and deer. Certainly 

 the gallinaceous birds appear to be even more dis- 

 tinctly designed for food than the Pigeons. There 

 is no race of birds that man persecutes more per- 

 sistently. 



